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Willie Randolph is exactly what he looks like on TV. He is a freakin’ nice guy number one. Willie has a charisma about him, and the baseball resume this guy possesses is a mile long. Willie is from Brooklyn, and I’d like to point out that background likely molded the man.

Another trumpet player teased me some years ago, snickering, “Oh, I guess you can’t make it because you probably have a gig in Brooklyn.” It’s true—I was teased with that, and it’s apropos.

“I’ve never lived in Brooklyn, but I spend a lot of time there,” is the way I described my relationship with the borough when asked some years ago. Either for a rehearsal or a gig. A rehearsal or a gig, did I say? Yes.

“Hopefully you won’t mind coming out to ‘hated’ Brooklyn to rehearse things,” was how a theatre friend once described setting up a rehearsal we had to arrange. I never forgot that one for its comedic relief.

“It’s a beautiful day in Brooklyn”—that’s my favorite feeling for the town, and that’s how I best feel about it whenever I’m there.

A “beautiful afternoon” is going on in Williamsport, Pennsylvania today as they host their Little League World Series as I write this. And as you hopefully know by now as a reader, that’s where the Little League portion of my own baseball journey connects and ended.

Lake Ariel is less than two hours away from Williamsport by car, and I grew up in a house that was a stone’s throw away from two recreational baseball diamonds. That means you could be sitting in your house on a summer evening or early fall evening and hear the crowd ebb and flow. There were houses, space, and a road in between my bedroom and the fields, but you could hear it. You could always tell when something positive was going on for a team just by the sound of the crowd. A Little League and T-ball league played on those fields mostly, though there was plenty of use being made of them by recreational softball leagues from local communities. Fields in the early 1980s were put to good use, and you might often find me on my downtime sneaking away from my house to watch or sit on the bleachers with others to observe a game.

It was on those fields that I witnessed a live, in-person, right-in-front-of-my-eyes player/umpire blow-up argument that resulted in the umpire giving the real McCoy: “You’re outta here!”

The player was ejected, and I will never forget how close their faces got to each other, how fast they talked, and how loud they yelled. It was automatic machine-gun fire, nose-to-nose, player to umpire. After twenty seconds of rapid-fire yelling directly into each other’s face, the umpire turned and gave the heave-ho.

“Wow.” I sat in silence as quiet layered across the field. Real adult men screaming at each other, with the player having a huge wad of chewing tobacco in his cheek right in front of my eyes.

Willie Randolph is a caliber of baseball man that people from the fields where I learned and last played the game have no business being on the same field with. Yet, I brushed shoulders with Willie two years in a row playing in the Bernie Williams hosted celebrity softball game up in Ridgefield, Connecticut. I’d play the gig at night, and as I’ve mentioned previously here, things worked out and I made some noise in front of guys from the very top of the baseball mountain.

Willie Randolph and Seneca, C. 2023

Yes, it’s softball, and yes, everyone’s best playing days are in the rear-view mirror. Mariano Rivera is around, but he doesn’t operate like his ego is untouchable. He still craves making a big play in front of the public or anyone watching. He’s the kind of guy who unrolls perfect moment after perfect moment. And as I’ll always say, that’s just how those guys roll.

Willie Randolph nailed me with a great baseball tweak. Standing on first base in my last at-bat after working a walk, I was preparing my mind and body for the next move and the next play. Then I saw Willie take some steps away from the visitor’s bench area directly into my line of sight. In a move unmistakably “Willie,” he outstretched his arms to me as if to say, “What? What do you think that is? A walk?”

Willie then, from just in front of the bench, pointed past me way out deep into right field, well over the fence.

He was miming to me: “You walked? Let’s see you hit a big one to the opposite field out there if you’re so great at everything!”

The gesture hit me right in the chest, and I nodded my head down like he had knocked the wind out of me slightly. Really, it was all the blood rushing to my face, blushing, and a huge smile I couldn’t contain.

I smiled hugely at Willie with nothing more to say or do. I knew what he likely sneered to the bench behind him when he got back to it: “Guy walks in a celebrity softball game. Can’t believe it. How are you going to walk in a celebrity softball game?” That’s exactly what I had heard Willie say about someone else the previous year I played.

I’m going to counter Willie with this: getting on base is a good thing, too. I didn’t like the pitches either. What do you want from me?

Think about all the legendarily great players Willie played with in his career and all the managers he played for, including Billy Martin. He played second base for the New York Yankees while I watched him on Channel 11 as a kid. Now, here I am many, many moons later, and he’s ribbing me like this? Where is my dad when I need him? It just doesn’t get any better.

After playing the previous year, Bernie mentioned to me later on at another gig: “Willie was holding you at third base and you just went right through him.”

On one play where I scored from second base, I recalled Willie, who was coaching third at the time, giving me a point of the finger down the third base line. I took it as a “go ahead, go ahead home” gesture. I had already made up my mind I was rounding third and heading home since the ball seemed loose in the outfield and I was going to make it.

In reality, Willie very well could have been holding me up, only to see that I was in a mad bull-rush of a gallop. What was the use of trying to stop me anyway? “Go ahead, go ahead, idiot,” he might have actually been saying.

“I didn’t go through a stop sign that Willie gave, did I?” I asked, always having thought I was making the right decision for the right moment.

Bernie just nodded his head. “Yes.”

“Huh.” I thought deeply about it.

Bernie seemed to find something more interesting in the moment, and I’ll remind everyone again that I did score while the ball was rattling around in the outfield.

Willie’s got the one-liners, the vibe, and the pure baseball energy that makes him simply a gem to be around on a team. Again, a massive baseball resume.

I don’t like having my country roots show—or my Central Park conditioning, for example—like during the foul line introductions the first year I brought my glove along with me out to the foul line after my name was announced (something you will never see others do). The cold reasoning and conditioning behind it? Someone might steal my glove.

As mentioned before, the first game I ever attended was a Yankee game. After the motorcoach parked in the lot, a man came aboard to sell his book. That man, named Vincent Bove, had written a book called On the Eighth Day God Created the Yankees. The book centered around Christian themes and was mainly a tribute to the life of Thurman Munson, whom I initially knew zero about. Through that book and over time, I learned about who Munson was. Reggie Jackson, Willie, Billy Martin, and other Yankees had small profiles throughout the book, each offering personalized statements.

After our softball game and all the great fun, I ran after Willie because I had to have him sign my copy of that book (And no, it wasn’t the original copy I owned as a kid; years ago, in a fit of nostalgia, I tracked a copy down on eBay). Now, some real autographs were making their way into that book. I am not an autograph collector by any means, but some things are just too good to pass up.

My girlfriend told me that during our first year there, she overheard Willie telling and retelling another person on the bench: “That’s why I go with what I can see. I don’t want to be spending time looking down at an iPad when the game is going on. I like to go with what I can see right in front of me,” gesturing out toward the field of play.

Another trumpeter remarked years ago that he was watching the Little League World Series and found it entertaining. “Isn’t it so inspiring?” he passionately said.

Honestly, I don’t love the idea of kids being on TV under that kind of national pressure, though I understand that might be considered an “out-of-touch” sentiment. That broadcast—and now the annual event as a whole—is a sport and cultural gold mine. A business? Ya think? It all becomes very emotional, though my girlfriend consistently raises an eyebrow and I remind her those kids have been blessed and have their whole lives ahead of them.

“All the way to Williamsport, and that will be the only time they ever go there in their lives,” I said to my girl today. And I have no problem saying that: traveling from anywhere on planet Earth to Williamsport involves navigating a lot of wilderness, that much I can tell you.

Willie Randolph—who in later years was forever done wrong by the New York Mets during his managerial stint there—is true New York baseball royalty.

In a fit of bad timing at a post-Bernie-show, Willie got caught in an unfortunate “stuck with the bill” situation.

“You’re expecting me to pay for this entire bill? Hey, wait a second here... oooh, now you did it!”

Willie was back and forth dealing with the bill, and after cooling off from the whole fiasco, he started heading past where I was standing. He was directly in front of me, so I gently patted him on the shoulder from behind and softly said, “Willie, you are a mentor. You are a mentor, Willie.”

Photo Courtesty of Jack Scarangella, notsomoderndrummer.com

Never really having had a formal introduction or formal meeting, I felt like I knew Willie enough to let him know that.

“Well, I just know that I love Bernie!” Willie ripped back to me—I think without even realizing it was Seneca the trumpet player, or maybe because he was still hot from the bill situation. Either way was totally fine by me.

The day I finally caught up to Willie to have him sign my book, I wanted to tell him how thankful I was to meet him and that Bernie had teased me about running through his “stop sign” at third base. My girlfriend had snapped a picture during a previous at-bat when I was holding up at third base next to Coach Willie. In the photo, my beer-belly hung over my belt as I stood next to a much sleeker, more athletic-looking Randolph.

“Oh my god, how embarrassing,” I thought when I saw the picture for the first time. The next year was going to be different, and the rest of my lifestyle was going to be very different from then on.

I told Bernie: “I will be damned if I am ever on a field again in my life with Willie Randolph while looking seven months pregnant!”

And Willie, you’re exactly right: I should be blasting the ball deep or posing a real threat to go deep to the opposite field. That’s the way I carry myself with the trumpet, right?

Willie has got it going on. A New York original, a Yankee captain, and whenever I had This Week in Baseball on Saturday afternoons as a kid, you might very well hear: “Willie Randolph... how about that?!”

Coming Next: We’ll take a look at sight-reading music—something I’m quite familiar with, proceeding with caution, as always.

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This article also features a quote from Ernest Hemingway and recalls a piece from last week, where we’ll quote our boy Stanley Crouch again—who famously referred to Christian McBride as a “physical genius” of the bass.

I was enraptured by all of that and more one morning while getting ready for school. My mom called out to me, having caught and taped a short segment off PBS.

“A New Generation in Jazz” was the title, and it was quite the video for a 12-year-old just catching the flame of jazz music.

Roy Hargrove, whom I was just getting familiar with, was featured heavily in the segment with his band. Branford Marsalis and Ron Carter—two other big names I knew—were there too. The very beginning featured my former colleague and friend, Ryan Kisor, blowing away in an intro performance I never got to see until the full eleven-minute segment was finally posted online years later.

Rewound, cued up, watched. I was immediately hooked upon my first view. I had missed that opening hit with Ryan because my mom was likely in a mad dash through a pile of VHS tapes before quickly shoving one into the machine to hit record.

I watched that segment over and over again, studying the way everyone—including the record executives—delivered their message. By the time the clip reached jazz critic Stanley Crouch, a lot of what was being said (and how it was being said) was way over my head.

“I don’t really understand and definitely can’t relate to what they’re talking about, but it seems very, very serious,” I thought to myself. They were talking in such deep, artful tones—especially bassist Ron Carter.

Whatever it is, I want to keep watching. And Roy Hargrove on the trumpet? Such a confident player, way beyond anything I had heard around my school or its competitive jazz festivals. Way beyond it. I had gotten interested in playing jazz through school band, but Roy Hargrove was the sophisticated sound of the day, and I was hungrily trying to learn about it. His band seemed rebellious and smart. I’ll have to fall in line with guys like that. They’re already making it.

Another major player in the segment was Christian McBride—someone I had also never heard of at the time, save for when DownBeat magazine started arriving at my house via subscription and I began picking up names through the CD review section. I wasn’t going to forget him now.

They said Christian was 19 years old, but to paraphrase a great comment I saw online years later: “He looked 39 and acted 59.”

Exactly. That’s more or less what I thought back then. It was unforgettable stuff to me.

And forget about just the personality for a second—the bass playing I heard in that segment caught my attention with its sound and feel immediately.

The way they all talked was captivating, but Christian had a particularly great way of speaking even back then.

For a while, I took knowing Christian for granted. Sure, we had played softball and made some great memories on the Heckscher Ballfields in Central Park back in the 2010s, but I won’t forget our embrace at the end of our recent big band rehearsal. He caught me in a side-hug where my head was practically buried in his right bicep and arm—my face completely flushed, experiencing a total “blackout” in his grip.

“Long time, no see!” Christian remarked in his trademark bass-baritone, SiriusXM-ready vocal tones.

I had no response to that, because he was exactly right.

“Hey, I want to record with you,” I told Christian as he was turning away.

“Hey, I wanna record with you. I’ll get Orrin, and... you know...”

“I know everyone probably tells you that,” I said, smirking and blushing all at once. “Everyone probably says, ‘I want to record with you.’”

“Oh yeah, but it’s mutual,” Christian easily responded back.

After the success of the Montclair Jazz Festival, Christian and his wife, Melissa Walker, hosted a massive brunch at their estate in the upper reaches of Montclair. The gathering was as welcoming and warm as Christian’s personality.

Christian McBride / jazzchill.blogspot.com

There was a large crowd of guests—mostly the Jazz House Kids educational staff that Melissa commands—along with several musicians from the band.

My girlfriend and I settled into some available seating in their spacious, tiered backyard. Seating was plentiful and guests were enjoying a lovely spread, even though it was overcast and appreciably cooler out.

In that original PBS segment, Stanley Crouch references Ernest Hemingway’s idea of genius. That sounded like something I’d be interested in now, just as I was as a kid.

My introduction to Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon comes courtesy of NYC film critic and softball buddy Jeffrey Lyons. Jeffrey, as anyone who knows him can attest, could expound chapter and verse on the book and its central theme of bullfighting.

Jeffrey was famous in softball circles for his phenomenal stories and the one-of-a-kind trivia he kept in reserve for anyone within earshot.

“No, that guy... he’s before my time,” I would tell Jeffrey while warming up behind the small bleachers in Central Park.

“So is Babe Ruth, but that didn’t stop you, did it?” Jeff responded with quick-draw rapidity.

I had no retort for that one. Jeff was the one who schooled me on the legend of catcher/spy Moe Berg, and when the legendary Jimmy Piersall passed away during one of our softball seasons, Jeff offered smooth, unique perspectives on Piersall’s life and legacy.

“Physical genius” was the description I could never forget Stanley Crouch giving Christian McBride—aligning perfectly with Hemingway’s definition in Death in the Afternoon of a genius being someone who learns at a “greater velocity” than others.

I can attest that my beer-clinking, Crouch was stone-cold right.

He is a physical genius. “Beautiful sound and inspiring lines,” I texted Christian afterward, thanking him for having me on the gig.

“I don’t understand how those big guys can stomach you not being available when they try to book you,” I added, attaching the blue-shirted iPhone shrugging emoji.

I’m sure there are plenty of frustrated bandleaders and trio heads out there steaming over the fact that they can’t get Christian on their calendar due to his schedule.

“Now this is a jazz life,” my girlfriend marveled, looking at the beautiful home Christian and Melissa maintain.

“Well, he is a bass player,” I weakly tossed back, hoping she’d buy into the rhythm section vs. horn player income differential. Naturally, as always, I got no sympathy there.

To close this article with a classic coda: Stanley Crouch once invited himself to the late Joe Temperley’s Upper West Side apartment on Riverside Drive for dinner. As Joe retold it, the evening was a roaring success.

“My wife made a huge dinner, and we must have sat there for three hours or more, talking and listening mostly to Stanley,” Joe said. “We had a couple of bottles of wine, I had a few gin and tonics, and just as we were clearing the dishes off the table, Stanley excused himself to the bathroom.”

“It was nothing out of the ordinary—except for the fact that after a wonderful dinner and engaging conversation, Stanley spent an entire sixty minutes on the toilet immediately after dessert.”

“I say ‘spent,’ because what else could he possibly be doing in there?”

“My wife and I took it as a compliment.”

Coming Next: Sunglasses—wearing them, performing in them, and the culture around them

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I’m wading into this topic with a good bit of relish, knowing full well that brass players everywhere have their own takes, fierce loyalties, and hyper-specific historical lore when it comes to mutes.

For me, the realization hit early on. First, I needed a straight mute for classical playing. Then, I needed a cup mute and a Harmon mute for jazz band—plus a plunger, of course. Those four mutes sit in my bag 85 percent of the time, though I’ll occasionally haul along a bucket mute as well for big band charts.

I’ve always had a special affection for the plunger. During my first big year in band, our ensemble performed a Porgy and Bess program. Day after day, I watched our 1st trumpet player feature on the big solo for “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” At the time, I had no idea what Porgy and Bess was, so discovering Gershwin’s iconic melodies felt like finding buried treasure. The plunger sounded so exotic—and learning how master trombonists handle it remains an essential pillar of my repertoire as well.

What this all gets down to is shading. Arrangers select specific mutes to paint colors, craft textures, and set a mood. Duke Ellington immediately comes to mind, but Gil Evans and countless other masters used every combination imaginable to match the music in their heads.

Of course, composers don’t always consider the physics of live performance. A classic issue—though it still happens today—is when an arranger fails to give the trumpet section enough rest time to pull the mute out before the next phrase.

“You didn’t think to give us a bar or two to put the mute down and get back to the horn?”

Thinking caps, people. Thinking caps!

Some arrangers are absolute sticklers for exact mutes at exact moments. On the other side, the legendary Carla Bley notably avoided mutes altogether in her Liberation Music Orchestra arrangements—perhaps a merciful response to trumpet players complaining about the hassle of lugging extra things to gigs.

Then our Lew Soloff, who was famous for grabbing whatever mute was within arm’s reach during section passages. The rest of the section would insert cup mutes, while Lew casually popped in a Harmon. I get it. Early on, I found it hard to believe a player could “accidentally” grab the wrong mute during a section soli or tutti passage—until I became that exact player myself. Bite your tongue, I know! But to a hyper-focused, creative soloist, rapid mute swaps are sometimes low on the priority list.

Casting the Mutes

Harmon Mute The iconic sound of Miles Davis. It creates a deeply human, intimate voice effect when paired with the trumpet. It can occasionally feel like a tight squeeze to play, but arrangers rely on it heavily for fringe textures, atmospheric colors, and sharp contrast in large ensembles.

Cup Mute Think “Dizzy Atmosphere.” A foundational staple for any big band trumpet section. I once shelled out 100 bucks for a Swedish, adjustable Dizzy-style cup mute. Naturally, I lost track of it years ago—left on a bandstand or tour somewhere, long gone.

Plunger Mute The ultimate Ellington companion. The rubber plunger I use today is the same one I’ve owned since I was a kid. It was once heavily endorsed by Clark Terry, though it draws mixed reviews in certain hipster plunger circles today. Humes & Berg manufactured that classic model, but a lot of players around New York currently swear by a specific fancy blue plunger. The running logic? “It is essential to use this blue plunger for Duke’s music because it matches the exact dimensions of the Bubber Miley Special from the late 1920s.”

Straight Mute The definitive voice of orchestral trumpet playing. A good straight mute offers the precise intonation and timbre required to keep a conductor happy. It’s less common in traditional jazz because its effect can feel a bit dry or bland, but arrangers will occasionally throw it in as an “outside-the-box” choice—especially in 1950s-style Latin arrangements.

Harmon Mute (Stem In) The signature sound of “It Ain’t Necessarily So” or “Sugar Blues.” You don’t see it used in big bands much, though Wynton Marsalis featured it at the end of Sweet Release. When an entire brass section plays a soli with stems in, it sounds like a chorus of mischievous schoolkids.

Open Horn “I saw you take that solo with the band the other night,” a trumpet player’s father once told his son while reviewing concert footage. “One big problem: when you stood up, it looked like you were messin’ around with a plunger or something on the end of your horn. You’re waving your hand around the bell going ooh-ahh, ooh-ahh. Nah. Just play open horn! Let the horn play - play it right. If the bandleader gives you a hard time, just walk up nicely and say, ‘It sounds better open, so I’m playing it open from now on.’”

You can thank me later for that piece of unvarnished wisdom—it’s too funny not to share.

Wine Glass If you find yourself at a late-night jam session without mute, an empty wine glass (or scotch glass) held over the bell makes a surprisingly slick substitute. Innovators like trombonist Jack Teagarden used to hold glasses over detached slides to pull off a loose, backyard sound, and modern masters like Wycliffe Gordon carry on that playful spirit today.

“Take the bottle away from him, Cone, he’s getting out of control!”

(Derby/Hat mutes, Bucket mutes, and Pixies—we’ll catch you on another time with those. Promise!)

It’s always fun talking mutes. For some musicians, testing new mutes, comparing brands, and searching for that magical setup is practically a religious experience.

Personally, I view mutes, horns, and mouthpieces through the same lens as Hank Aaron viewed baseball bats: give him any piece of wood, and he was going to start cracking hits. It should feel natural. The goal is simply finding tools that allow your innate abilities—your chops—to shine through without getting in the way.

That said, trumpet players can get notoriously opinionated. I once had a section mate on a lower chair launch a quiet campaign with our bandleader, claiming he couldn’t blend because of my Harmon mute. I’d never heard that complaint before—my Harmon mute sounds great, pure Miles! I’ve tried other brands and bubble mutes, but the classic Harmon I use (which you’ve heard on this page hundreds of times) has been in my bag for 35 years.

The bandleader pulled me aside with a grin and a wink: “What if the band bought a Harmon mute together that we could all use?” I politely declined. Everything is just fine with my trusty Harmon, and as of press time, it remains firmly in my case.

To wrap things up, I’ll leave you with a story about a classic piece of bandstand mischief.

During a gig, our featured soloist stood up at his mic to unleash an energetic, high-note solo filled with bravado and drama. To his left, another trumpet player quietly reached over and set a rubber plunger directly in the middle of the soloist’s empty chair. He gave us a look that said: I’ve got him now.

The soloist finished his high-flying passage to massive applause, flashing a brilliant smile and doing a little victory shimmy for the crowd. The prankster gave the plunger one final adjustment to ensure a direct hit.

Still sweating from the high-note workout, the soloist beamed at the audience and dropped squarely back into his seat.

“Oooo!!” His eyes shot open in total shock as he landed right on top of the plunger.

Usually, when a player realizes they’ve sat on a plunger, they leap up immediately. Not this guy. He just sat there, swaying in his chair.

“Oooooo... oo, oo, oo, who-do-would-could-do-boo-boo!” he stammered, completely caught off guard, before recovering just in time to blast the final section shout chorus.

Backstage after the show, one of the sidemen shook his head in wonder. “Normally you see a guy jump five feet in the air. But him? Man, it looked like he was actually enjoying it!”

Needless to say, whenever I step up to take a solo these days, I make sure to give my chair a quick sweep before I sit back down.

Coming Next: Playing with top-call bassist Christian McBride and his Big Band. Don’t miss it!

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That was the line whispered to me when our man, legendary trumpet player Lew Soloff, passed away.

“Oh yeah, that’s for sure,” I replied.

Jazz cats, musicians, and creative types like to operate in the dark. Lew knew everyone. He worked maitre d’s and bandleaders alike. Lew often carried that little red booklet, the Zagat Guide to the Best Restaurants, and would announce to at least one band member after every single gig: “Here are the three best restaurants in this city, and we have exactly this long to get there before they close.”

Lew also liked to pick his moments with small groups playing around the city. He’d look at the schedule, see who was playing where, and because he’d known everyone for decades, he’d just stroll in and sit in for a tune.

New York cats know how to navigate the night. But upstate night life? That’s a whole different animal.

Our recent Caroga Lake concert wrapped up nicely, as I mentioned in my last piece.

“We’re staying one more night,” I told our bandleader, Kyle.

“Just let the festival know,” he said.

“Okay, we’re staying one more night.”

“Great, set on that front. No problem.”

Well, when the sun went down around 9:00 PM, my girlfriend and I found ourselves in our bed-and-breakfast accommodations—completely alone in a massive, empty building. I walked into the bedroom where we were setting up.

“Okay, you’ve got my attention now,” I announced to her. “I don’t know about this place,” I added, a nauseating feeling starting to settle in my stomach.

She nodded back knowingly. We were thinking the exact same thing.

We’d played golf earlier in the day. There was a little rain off and on, but the sun peaked through here and there. By late afternoon, after we settled into the room, it grew increasingly cloudy outside.

And increasingly quiet. A Sunday evening in a small town, right by the lake. Dead silent.

The Boat House

“I’m going to lock all the entrances I can find,” I told her.

The house, a former boathouse built in 1960, had endless twists, turns, and weird angles across its two stories. I really should have seen it coming. I had the sudden urge to say, “Why don’t we just pack up and drive home tonight?” But I held back. I didn’t want to ruin the weekend.

C’mon, I thought to myself. How much street smarts do you have? You’ve been around.

With one last door left to secure, I made my way over to a glass door separating our second-floor hallway from a wooden stairwell. That stairwell led to an entrance opened via a four-digit keypad. There were windows and doors throughout the entire building that felt secure enough, but still...

What’s that little noise downstairs?

I froze. I could hear movement.

Now, I should mention: this second floor had a small floor vent where you could look directly down to the first floor, and vice versa, in one single shot. How’d you like someone looking up at you from down below in the dark?

I opened the glass door slightly and peered down. I could see two shadowy figures moving around the entrance.

Because the building had been run as a restaurant in more recent years, there were lights left on permanently here and there—not a total blackout house of horrors look, per se, but eerie enough.

Years ago, I scared off an intruder at my Washington Heights apartment while he was coming up my fire escape. Oh yeah. The real deal. I never saw his face because my kitchen blinds were drawn. I was sitting at my drafting table at 1:25 AM on a Monday night after a gig, eating a nice turkey club from the 24-hour deli near the hospital, desk lamp lit, wrapping up the day.

Then I saw a bulge in the blinds as a leg started pushing through my cracked-open window.

I immediately stood up, positioned myself in the doorway of my darkened uptown kitchen, and let out the single loudest, most primal yell my body has ever produced. The blinds instantly snapped back. I heard an adult man’s voice scramble down the metal steps: “Got the wrong apartment, sorry! Got the wrong apartment!”

Chalked that up as an extremely scary moment, put a heavy security gate on the fire escape, and moved on.

Well, back to these two shadowy figures at the boathouse. I took a breath. Okay, I’m ready to go. I’ve been in this position before. I take on the protector role proudly, but man, it gets the blood pressure pumping.

I started stepping down the top stair toward the kitchen entrance into the shadowy scene below, stepping diagonally like a panther.

“Uh, hello? We’re here to turn over the beds for the new artists coming in tomorrow,” a voice called out.

It was a young man accompanied by a young woman from the festival crew whom I recognized.

“Oh,” I gasped. “I am so sorry. Kyle didn’t tell you we were staying the extra night? Do you need us to leave?”

“No, it’s totally okay,” the young man responded calmly.

“Oh, okay,” I sighed, taking a massive breath of relief. “You really got my blood pressure going just now!”

“I’m so sorry to scare you. Everything is okay. What time will you be leaving in the morning?”

“Is 8:00 AM okay?”

“8:00 AM is fine!” the woman called up to me.

Great, nice people, I thought. What a wonderful festival. Whew, that was scary.

“What was that?” my girlfriend asked as I got back into our room, locking the glass door push-button behind me.

“Just some folks from the festival,” I told her, settling in. “They didn’t know we were staying, but it’s totally cool. They said 8:00 AM is fine.”

Still, I couldn’t shake it. As I was locking up all the entrances—especially that creepy secondary section of the second floor called the “Captain’s Quarters”—the place just felt off. According to its guest log, it had hosted tons of groups during the winter ski season. A brush orange lithium-type light illuminated some of the rooms, and a large, spacious bathroom was the main feature of the upper floor.

The Boat House, Caroga Lake, right background

That bathroom did not have a lock. I repeat: no lock. I had to move a small table in front of the door, and my girlfriend tied a knot through a towel to keep it securely shut when she used it.

Otherwise, we kept the bathroom door wide open. Our bedroom door, thankfully, locked from the inside. Priority number one covered.

Okay. Off to a nice, relaxing, quick vacation night. Turn off the lights and go to sleep.

“Goodnight!”

At 2:45 AM, I jolted awake.

I have to go to the bathroom, I realized.

I slid out of bed and opened the bedroom door into the dark hallway while my girlfriend lay on the other side in a deep, relaxed sleep. Without missing a beat, I turned the corner to the bathroom and reached out, wiping the sleep from my eyes with my other hand.

Oh, the door is closed, I thought.

I pushed the door open slowly. The sound of a cascading shower hit my ears, steam coating the glass enclosure inside.

You know that feeling when you know something is horribly wrong before you do it... but you do it anyway?

That’s exactly what happened to me.

In that split-second, unconscious moment, a man’s voice from inside the steaming shower quietly said:

“Sorry.”

I slammed the door shut.

I turned dead around, bolted up the hallway to our bedroom, closed the door, and locked it instantly.

My girlfriend was still fast asleep. I got into bed, wide awake. Both eyes peeled open.

Oh my God. What was that? WHO was that?!

The phrase “sleeping with one eye open” didn’t even apply here, because I didn’t sleep a single second for the rest of the night. No more sounds came from the building, though the window air conditioner was cranked on high, churning out enough noise to cover plenty of footsteps.

The next morning, I retold the nightmare to my bewildered girlfriend. She went to check the bathroom—and confirmed the phantom swimmer had used her towel. It was still damp on the hook. She also found fresh dirt and blades of grass tracked onto the bathroom floor.

No trash had been taken out. Nothing else in the other rooms was touched.

The desperate theory I floated—that maybe it was just the building owner—didn’t fly very far with her.

“Nothing was touched in the other rooms, and the owner comes in at 2:45 in the morning to take a shower and doesn’t say a word to us?” she asked.

“You’re right. I know,” I admitted.

We packed our bags and got the hell out of there promptly at 8:00 AM.

“Well, that’ll never happen again. Are you kidding me?!” I said as we made our way off for the day.

Fortunately, we were blessed with what I call the true best day of the year: no performance, no timelines, just 18 holes of golf and dinner at the end. Though, admittedly, I played the entire round in a dazed, hyper-aware state brought on by a 2:45 AM adrenaline rush.

How I handled going to the bathroom that morning, I’ll discreetly classify as Top Secret. It was Number One, and that’s all you need to know—sanitation honored, disposal administered.

“Well, that’ll be the last time we ever do that,” I remarked as we drove south down the twisting roads. It was beautiful scenery—spacious upstate farms with big, stunning white horses grazing in the fields.

“Ooh, look at all the apple trees!” she pointed out. Then she paused. “What was on the other side of that locked door in the Captain’s Quarters? That whole area gave me such a terrible pit in my stomach. I couldn’t even walk into that room.”

“Yeah, I could feel something in there, too,” I said.

“And that bed we stayed in the first night—it kept sinking lower and lower in the middle as the night went on,” she added.

“You mean like it was swallowing us up?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed.

“Well, hopefully never, ever again will we find ourselves in a setup like that.”

Later, I texted my sister Lisa about the encounter, knowing she’d appreciate the suspense. She was the one sitting next to me in a darkened room when I saw my very first Friday the 13th movie as a kid. We grew up near a lake, too—someone really needs to write a paper on the mathematical requirement for horror and fright around bodies of water.

“LOL,” she texted back. “Funny, not funny.”

I let her in on the absolute ice that ran through my veins, knowing an unknown man was casually showering down the hall while police were miles and miles away.

It’s got a certain ring to it, right? All the classic variables of an upstate getaway gone completely rogue.

“Let’s ask Kyle about the festival rates he got for the Holiday Inn in Johnstown for next year,” my gal said as we cruised down the highway.

“Uh-huh. Look, there was a naked stranger showering in the middle of the night in our lodging. Something is definitely not right about that,” I declared. “They would’ve heard some real opera in that town if that guy tried to turn our doorknob. A lot of big yelling and screaming.”

“Whew. That was nuts,” I said, reflecting on the razor-thin drama of the night.

“Ask Kyle about the Holiday Inn for next time.”

“Yeah,” I thought, staring off into the distance as we drove, still slightly dazed by the millisecond of time right before I heard that whispering shower voice.

Holiday Inn... definitely.

Coming Next: We’ll talk about practice—and the actual art of “practicing.”

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I think I was right there when the spread caught fire. I can remember it being the spring of 1999, and the sign of the times was unmistakable: you had to have a cell phone. You didn’t want to be left out, and suddenly, you noticed everybody had one.

Back then, you clipped it right onto your belt, and one of the first things I noticed was that musicians absolutely loved talking on them. If they weren’t sitting in rehearsal playing their horn, they were yakking, yapping, and staring at the ceiling with a phone pressed to their ear. Before that, musicians used to linger around pay phones, but as those slowly moved out of fashion, people seemed a little more relaxed—or so I thought.

“Can you hear me now?”

That was the era. A friend and I were deep into watching a basketball game when that famous Verizon commercial kept popping up. “Can you hear me now? Good.” Again and again, it ran. My friend mimed an imaginary shotgun blast at the TV screen.

You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, baby, I thought to myself.

Because if you think cell phones were bad in the living room, you can forget about what was about to happen on the stage and in the rehearsal hall.

Our Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra crew had an afternoon and night off in a northern Florida town while making our way through the South—passing through Louisiana and over into the Panhandle.

“Oh hey, there’s a bowling alley!” or “Hey, did you see that bowling alley on the way to the hotel?” is an oft-heard phrase on the road.

A trombonist I worked with arrived in the hotel lobby for our group departure already talking away into his cell phone. He spoke softly enough—and when you travel with a big band, you learn how to lay back or idle along to take a call while managing two things at once. But this trombonist never stopped talking. We arrived at the bowling alley with a much bigger crowd than usual, as bowling doesn’t make the band tour itinerary all that often.

It was a total bash—fun, loose, and jazz musicians bowling. C’mon, it’s a wash. The back-and-forth riffing, the comedic twists and turns, the gutter balls.

“Turkey!” you’d inevitably hear someone shout, because musicians are clever enough to electrify any moment. But bowling requires a certain discipline, much like most individual sports and creative endeavors. To be really good at it, you have to practice a lot, so mostly everyone was just having fun.

Though you always had to beware the serious competitors. That very night, I overheard one musician confront another with folded arms: “You know, if you think you can beat me in a one-on-one challenge on these lanes, I wouldn’t be opposed to putting down a healthy $100 bet if you’re game.”

Guys were settling into our adjacent lanes with the bigger group, reaching down to pull on their bowling shoes, tying laces, and setting aside their street footwear.

“I wouldn’t want to take you up on that bet, because I don’t want to take your money,” came the counter-volley.

“Oh, you sound awfully confident for someone who didn’t even know what the arrows on the lane were for,” the first guy fired back. “I asked what arrow you like to stand behind and you said, ‘Huh?’ That’s awfully big talk for someone about to lose a hundred bucks.”

“I like my chances.”

“Good,” came the reply.

Throughout the late afternoon across four full lanes of bowling powered by feverish Lincoln Center revelry, that trombonist threw his ball, talked on the phone, threw his ball, and talked on the phone. While he sat on the bench waiting for his frame, he talked the entire time. You couldn’t even hear what he was saying because it was so disguised and hushed.

First, you disrespect yourself, and second, you disrespect the music. Those were Bobby Porcelli’s words.

I can’t think of a better way to look at it. Over the years, I’ve seen my share of rehearsal distractions—the guy reading a newspaper, or the guy buried in a book. Once, a trumpet player watched a Yankee game on a tiny portable TV, listened to his own record through headphones to check the mix, and shot heroin into his wrist with one hand. No, that wasn’t all the same person, but you get how far the concept of “checking out” can go.

Musicians see it and learn it from somewhere, and I think it stems from a bad strain of elitism: I’m too good to put my phone away. It’s remarkable, but it’s true. Musicians are hitting their phones hard these days, completely distracted. It’s taking on the vibe of a weary pit musician: Been there, done that, when’s the next paycheck, boss?

No, it does not have to be that way.

You can sit there and think about the music. Think about your playing. Think about the composition—which is often an original piece—or dig into the classic material you’re privileged to play.

It’s worth mentioning a quote from my college days, where a student had grabbed hold of a piece of great jazz wisdom and tried to live by it:

“When things are not right and everything is falling apart in the band, that’s the time I turn inward and think to myself, ‘How can I overcome all of this even more through pure music and expression?’ Look inward to dig deeper when things are going wrong.”

I’ve mentioned this story before, but one of the coolest things I ever heard about Harry Connick Jr. was him grabbing a saxophonist’s cell phone right off the bandstand and chucking it like a 25-yard spiral pass. In my imagination, I pictured a huge scene—big money involved, Harry completely fed up, shocking the entire room.

Later, I asked one of Harry’s longtime sidemen about it. “Hey, what about that time Harry grabbed that guy’s cell phone and threw it?”

“Aw, that was a long time ago,” he replied, deflating the energy balloon in my mind just a bit. “Harry’s much more relaxed and chill about that stuff now.” Still, it remains an endearing legend to me.

Joe Temperley once mentioned to me, “In the ’60s, everyone walked around with a transistor radio glued to their ear. Now everyone is staring down at their phone. Remarkable.”

You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, baby.

Joe added, “I have a strict rule when it comes to golf: I refuse to play with anyone who touches a cell phone. The last time I ever played golf, I got to the parking lot, unloaded my clubs, and the second I heard a guy talking on his cell phone, I split. Grabbed my clubs, put them right back in the car, and headed straight home. I’ve never played golf since.”

(Joe was likely talking about playing locally in New York, as I know he still golfed over in Scotland in his later years.)

I love that story. But between the iPads, the smartwatches, and the phones on the music stands, how do you like your clichés? Over easy?

• “You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.”

• “The horse has left the barn.”

• “You’re pissing in the wind.”

And that’s fine. As Jack Walrath was famous for saying, “I’m only trying to help.”

You will have a much more rewarding time on the stand—even if you happen to hate the gig. How long is a rehearsal anyway? An hour? Two hours? Three hours? God forbid you don’t check your screen every thirty minutes.

That fabled, oft-repeated line—“The music will take care of you if you take care of it”—cannot happen while you’ve got your phone glowing in your lap during the middle of a tune. It’s selfish, and it’s the exact opposite of what making music is supposed to be about.

So, now that we’ve established that: just make sure your phone is on silent while you’re sitting in the section with me. And keep the text messages to a minimum during the set—especially while someone is taking a solo.

Deep down, as much as we all try to keep up with the times, we wish for a better era when we played our instruments without digital distractions. Maybe one day the guys and gals will realize it, kick our standards up a notch, and fall back in love with making the absolute best use of our rehearsal time and performances.

Or maybe never.

Coming Next: I’ll share the life and times from this past weekend up in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Loading up the golf clubs, making some great music, and taking in all the beautiful scenery.

I first met Perry Daniels on a cruise ship. He played alto mainly, but Perry was one of those guys who could play all of the saxophones—a true doubler who had some serious flute and clarinet chops as well.

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Since we’re always diving into something, I thought I’d dive a little into Dizzy Gillespie’s classic, “Manteca.”

Manteca. What a great tune.

“What does Manteca mean?”

“It means butter.”

“Okay, I know.”

“Good, okay—everybody’s good with that... butter.”

At the end of this article, I’m walking the walk and embedding a link to a version I recorded with Peter Drew and the gang—complete with the high notes. This one is pure feel-good, so you don’t have to stress about the deep mechanics of “true jazz,” even though the piece is revolutionary to its core.

It’s the kind of track you put on when your friend is falling asleep at the table or at the hang, snapping him awake just in time to say, “Man, what a great tune.”

The Genius of the Groove

What a brilliant collection of ideas right from the jump. It starts with that simple B♭ octave opening phrase—masterful simplicity and pure groove. Then comes the famous bassline intro everyone knows and loves. Add the Afro-Cuban rhythm section, and the tune takes off.

Or rather, you get that iconic “triplet-triplet-triplet-triplet-POW!” send-off into four before the saxophone section introduces the melody at A—a full, tutti call-and-response with the brass. Very funky.

Then comes the bridge, a harmonic playground:

• The ii−V Setup: You have the ii−V happening right away, moving to D♭7(♯11) for two bars. This gives the soloist a chance to get their “Dizzy on”—Dizzy had so many cool, signature licks over ♯11s (pure bebop).

• The Shift: The harmonic palette changes in the 5th bar by shifting down just a half-step. Suddenly, you’re on good ol’ B♭7, setting up a V with E♭7 before arriving at a nice, relaxing A♭Maj7 to sit on. (I’m fairly certain scholarly research confirms the bridge was entirely Dizzy’s touch.)

• Chano’s Homeland: Next, a step-down ii−V moves toward G♭Maj7, but voilà—the sound of Chano Pozo’s homeland finds bar 12. You’d better have a sweet resolution ready there, because you only have four bars left!

• Bringing It Home: A half-step shift brings us to a minor ii−V (Fm7(\flat5)−B♭7alt). Go ahead and alter that five—why don’t ya? Then, before heading back to the riffing melody (“Ah, Dizzy, you’re so good to us”), the harmony resolves beautifully to the ears and the veins with a hint of black-cauldron blues: a minor ii−V back to the B♭7 home base.

Lessons from the Frontline

In my senior year of high school, I got the chance to play the original Dizzy Gillespie arrangement and take the solo. Tasked with learning Dizzy’s transcribed opening solo note-for-note, I realized quickly that it was tough stuff. But I also discovered there is nothing more fun than walking out front to play a Dizzy solo. You can just let it all hang out.

Now, you might let it all hang out on the 50-yard line with a “lead trumpet, lean-back, bring-it-home Santa Clara” vibe—but Dizzy isn’t like that. The bridge will make you feel those soaring qualities, but always built on a very sophisticated harmonic platform.

In the version I recorded, I gave a nod to Jon Faddis’s interpretation, running up the steps to the double-C at the end.

I have to admit, I’m personally partial to the GRP All-Star Big Band version of “Manteca” from their live album. I know, I know—sorry, but it’s my favorite. I love watching the video, too. They could use a beefing up of the rhythm section and lean heavier into Latin flavor, but we’ll live and it’ll be ok. I’ll just surrender and attribute it to being “the version I grew up with.”

Arturo Sandoval plays lead on that track. Now, as much as I’ve heard critics claim his playing on the bridge to “Tin Tin Deo” was more like a bull in a china shop than articulated virtuosity—or quip about his “augmentish” scale talk—I’m just thankful he sends me a Facebook birthday message every single year. He never misses a year.

It also brings to mind Chico O’Farrill, who wrote a breathtaking piece that Arturo Sandoval and Chico’s famous son (my friend, pianist Arturo O’Farrill) played as a duet called “The Journey.”

“That’s one of the most beautiful pieces I’ve ever heard,” my girlfriend remarked the first time she heard it.

“That’s Arturo and Arturo,” I said, smiling.

She just stared.

“Chico wrote that for Arturo Sandoval.”

“He knew Arturo could play the low notes,” she stated perfectly.

Chico also had a masterful arrangement of “Manteca” that bottled up all the magic of the piece like a wizard arranger. Just thinking about “Manteca” makes me a little happier.

That’s the work of Dizzy Gillespie for you. Can’t you hear the legendary lead trumpeter Al Porcino saying?

“I consider Dizzy the absolute best—the king!”

To me, Dizzy will always be “Our Umbrella” man, referring to his famous TV spot with Louis Armstrong. What Dizzy played, how he looked, how he acted—it’s perfect. It’s the best. So we’ll enjoy Dizzy and his work always, “Manteca” or otherwise.

(A quick tip for the band directors out there: Run this by your high school or middle school band! Have someone else play the bridge if you need to, or challenge another player in the section to share the lead role, since Dizzy’s solo is often written as a feature.)

Let’s remember, folks: if you’re asked to play a Dizzy solo out front, you can’t hand off the high notes Dizzy played to someone sitting back in the section! If you do, you haven’t honored Dizzy’s playful nature. Go for the note—no passing Dizzy’s high notes on your own feature!

A Memory from the Allentown-Bethlehem Territory

I hope you enjoy this shoebox-sized take on things, featuring yours truly on the recorded version with our friend Peter Drew (circa 2016, of course). I’ve been playing “Manteca” for years, and I hope to keep playing it for a very long time.

The very first Dizzy album I ever owned was a $5.99 drugstore cassette containing some of his earliest recordings. I spied it during a trip through the Allentown-Bethlehem territory while staying over for a weekend with my sister and brother-in-law.

We had spent the whole day Christmas shopping, and I couldn’t resist popping in the tape before we made the drive home. There was no one in my brother-in-law’s den, so I cranked up the stereo. The shouts, cries, and bebop rhythms came punching straight out of the speakers.

“Yeah, this is cool stuff. I love it. Dizzy Gillespie,” I thought, smiling.

“Tanga!”

“Manteeeeeca!”

“Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac!”

“Tingy-tingy do-ku, Symphony Sid!”

Suddenly, my brother-in-law came strolling in wearing what looked like a vintage early-sixties sportcoat and a pair of koala-bear-fur earmuffs, tilting his head with a jaunty swagger.

“Yeah, I’m feeling it—whew!” he said, snapping his fingers. “Yeah, turn it up in the back! Okay, can’t hear you,” he added, tapping his left earmuff. “Okay, hear ya now! Okay, yup, loving it!” He mimed mixing at a soundboard straight through the wall four feet away.

He was smiling, I was loving it, and Dizzy was doing what he did best: reaching right inside people and bringing them pure joy.

Coming Up Next: A big shoutout to my boy, Joe Gonzalez—what can I say? I was feeling his vibe talking about all this music.

Manteca

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I say: No way. You play in that marching band.

You start playing and learning music on the field, and you decide for yourself where you want to take it from there.

This is the time of year when marching season kicks into high gear. The charts get handed out for the fall program, and the big engine of the band starts revving up.

I can still remember the first phrase I ever played in my first real marching band: “Porgy and Bess,” second trumpet, stepping off for my first few counts of drill. Reading a drill sheet and understanding how a field show comes together was a complete education in itself.

Giants Stadium and Half a Point

“How’s it feel to be in one of the best marching bands in the country, Seneca?” my director asked softly. He was in the back of the bus, reveling in a hotly contested second-place finish alongside the older kids.

“Only by half a point. Just half a point,” he repeated with a grin.

The upperclassmen looked like a satisfied group of underdogs and overachievers. Heading back home from East Rutherford, New Jersey, felt like we had pulled off a major coup in the music world. It was a CMBC Marching Band championship final, and we were nearly recognized as the very best in our category.

“Huh?” I mumbled, waking up halfway home.

We had just performed at what was then Giants Stadium—and as of today, courtesy of the World Cup final, MetLife Stadium.

“Kelly won Best Drum Major! Did you see the other guy step forward like he thought he was going to win?” someone blurted out. The whole bus was floating in a catatonic, euphoric state.

I’m definitely not giving this up now, I thought to myself at that tender, impressionable age.

In the seventh grade, walking out of a parking lot warmup, heading down a dark tunnel corridor into a massive professional stadium, and stepping onto the AstroTurf is huge. I looked up and saw the massive scoreboard and giant corporate logos—Budweiser and other massive brands—and I felt like a little ant marching out there. The field lights were blindingly bright. I had been to a Yankees game years before, but that was a sunlit summer afternoon. This was a whole different world.

On Movies and Marching Bands:

When the movie Whiplash came out years ago, people called it a depiction of jazz culture. To me, it felt like marching band culture. I’ve never known a jazz band musician who would tolerate that kind of environment, but in a hyper-competitive marching band? Maybe.

The Western Wayne Machine

My school competed in Group One—the smallest category, meaning 30 to 35 musicians on the field, plus color guard on top of that. As you might know, high school and college marching bands can get massive. I never experienced a giant band. I did experience a polished, high scoring band. That would be my first year at Western Wayne, located in the “west” of Wayne County, Pennsylvania—the northeastern most reaches of the Keystone State. A caller to the local news station Talkback segment put it well: “Um, wonderin’ why you never talk about Wayne County? There’s so much good stuff in Wayne County. The leaves and the beautiful um, the countryside and, ….and all the farmers and….the stores, and everything, I guess I wish you could highlight Wayne County every once in a while.”

Our main rival that year was a school from New Jersey: Governor Livingston High School. To me at thirteen, “Governor Livingston” might as well have been Albuquerque.

“Governor Livingston marches with bagpipes! Let the bagpipes burn!” kids would shout. The more I learned about them, the more like an outlier scene it all was.

Our small band operated under a director who combined a higher calling with horse-track gambling intensity. He navigated a line that kept you bouncing between three distinct thoughts:

1. “Is this all about student growth and a pure love of music?”

2. “Secretly, there’s big money being bet on this band and our director is bankrolling it.”

3. “We are one step away from ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.’”

There was a giant homemade poster at the front of the band room that read:

“Mediocrity: The moment you accept it is the moment it takes over everything you do for the rest of your lives.”

By passing that flame from the older kids to the younger ones, a powerful culture was built—and that’s what I walked into.

Jonathan Searfoss, a trumpeter and Scranton High graduate, was the skipper of this ship. A year before I joined the high school band, they made a recruiting visit to my middle school. The trumpet section had that extra gear that only special performers possess. They were delivering eye-popping, eye-watering 8va phrases—all played in a loose, fancy-free, go-for-the-fences style that was completely intoxicating. I remember watching a saxophonist cover one ear, as if to say, “I’m not used to these guys playing this loud and high.”

Those guys had swallowed Doc Severinsen’s strut whole.

Michko Builders & Locker Room Talk

Because our band was small, no one in our percussion section marched with a bass drum. A clever solution was devised: one of the students took the initiative to build a custom tilted rack out of PVC pipe that held four marching bass drums. A single drummer could sit on a stool and play all four like an elevated drum kit.

After one of our weekly competitions, I was walking behind the five percussionists in the parking lot back to the bus—unzipped collars, hats tilted back, faces slick with sweat. We weren’t in marching formation anymore, just walking behind the bleachers and chain-link fences.

“Hey, Carl,” one of them said. “You know what I overheard while we were passing another school back there?”

“What’s that?” asked Carl, the senior section leader and builder of the rack.

“They said, ‘Whoa, look at that bass drum rack! Look at how those drums are set up! Man, I wonder where that school bought that? That is so cool!’”

“Michko Builders and Drum Racks,” another student chimed in, using Carl’s last name.

They all laughed together on cue, and Carl just grinned as they kept strolling toward the bus.

In the fall, you were always gigging. We smartly had a football game or a competition every single weekend. A Friday night home game meant a 6:00 AM wake-up, a full day of classes, marching rehearsal after school, dinner in the cafeteria, changing into uniform, a quick run-through in the band room, and then marching in file out to the stadium.

You played bumper hype music between plays, performed the halftime show from memory, grabbed a snack bar break, played the second half, and marched back to the school.

The boy’s changing room next to the band room was my introduction to locker room banter, smelling things worse than I ever had before, and learning what stretch marks were on the human body.

“Whoa, what are you getting all dressed up for?” someone asked a trombone player who was splashing on cologne and buttoning a sharp shirt in front of the mirror.

“School dance tonight,” he replied. “School dance is every Friday after a game. Hoping I get lucky tonight.”

“Hey, where are my black socks? What time do we report tomorrow?” someone else called out.

And occasionally, a classic joke: “I’m going directly into the director’s office to tell him playing in 6/8 time is NOT in my contract.”

Seneca @ Giants Stadium, c. 1993

“Imaginary Dinner Plates”

One afternoon, Mr. Searfoss announced: “We are going to have something very special. The man who wrote our marching drill, Joe Shonis, has agreed to come here for a full-day workshop.”

Joe Shonis was a trumpet player and a graduate of Lake-Lehman—a regional marching power. He didn’t play much horn anymore; he spent his time writing 15-to-20-minute field drills. Early in the day, Joe asked for my horn to demonstrate proper carriage. He stood right in front of me and addressed the band in a deep, authoritative voice.

Horn down. Snap.

“The best players look like they have imaginary dinner plates resting on their shoulders at all times,” Shonis instructed.

It felt like the Dirty Dozen—a ragtag, junkyard-dog group getting elite, formal technique that added a whole new dimension to our game. Joe’s wife assisted during the workshop, keeping track of the drill sheets with a warm smile and an encouraging word.

Smart, handsome trumpet player, great wife, I thought. I’ve got a long way to go to get to that place in life.

From the Field to the Stage

Marching is at the core of the New Orleans tradition—the very birthplace of jazz. The history of brass instruments will always be married to marching. Second-line street parades and funky street rhythms are distant cousins to the drum corps style, but no serious musician should ever turn their nose up at it.

The legendary trombonist David Taylor once mentioned to that he would love to go to a marching competition with me, noting how entertaining and acoustically fascinating it is. Producing a massive, beautiful, acoustic sound on a brass instrument? You had me at hello.

My girlfriend once asked me, “Before you went to New World, what was your high school in Pennsylvania known for?”

“Every high school has a trophy case when you walk in,” I told her. “My school wasn’t in the state football playoffs every year, but when Searfoss was there? That trophy case was packed to the brim with marching band trophies.”

Back in seventh grade, I didn’t even know how to pronounce mediocrity, let alone grasp its full weight. But the way I read that poster in the Wayne County band room—and the way our crew took the field through a perfect storm of discipline and passion—led me straight to the very heart of high-level music-making.

Marching band teaches you projection, endurance, time, and teamwork. You’ll learn to blend, carry your gear, make lifelong friends, and project your sound with confidence.

It’s a fantastic way to start—and you’re going to be just fine with marching band in your life.

Epilogue & Erratum

Joe Shonis went on to achieve even greater acclaim as a drill writer. Though I never saw him again, I bet he reaped great rewards from his special talent on the field.

After our championship run, Jonathan Searfoss was offered a position at Pocono Mountain High School, where he went on to build another storied winning career. He’s retired now, very happy, and recently told me, “I actually live closer to Western Wayne now in retirement than I did when I taught there!”

Makes sense.

Coming Next: With the World Cup final wrapping up just down the street, we’ll dive into Spain and Argentina—two countries I visited early in my career that share a deep, passionate love for jazz.

*Correction from last week’s article on Bobby Porcelli: I referenced the tune “Caravan” and mentioned that Bobby sang “do-dot-do-dah-dot-dot-do-dot-do-dah” after 8 measures. That phrase actually occurs after 12 measures.